'Thought you'd done with me, didn't you?' And so you damn nearly had. A couple of the little devils almost got me, but I croaked one, and then beat up the other to see what it was all about. Yes, you spun 'em a good yarn— that bit about the cat put paid to my chances—almost. But, by God, your going to be sorry for it.'
He paused, and looked at her. Margaret did her best to stare steadily back. He must not know what a horrible feeling of empty weakness his last vicious threat had caused. He dropped his gaze at last, and grunted.
'Going to be stubborn, eh? It'll be better for you if you're not.'
Still Margaret made no reply. She fought against a rising fear. What did Miguel intend? The very deliber-ateness of his tone frightened her as much as the threats themselves.
'Now, first, are you going to tell me where this Sun Bird is?'
Margaret shook her head.
'No.'
He shrugged his shoulders. 'I thought you'd say that. I'm giving you a chance you don't deserve. Tell me, and there'll be no more trouble.'
She gave no reply.
'A pity,' he said. 'You've got nice hands.'
He put aside his piece of mushroom, and, very deliberately, picked up a flaky lump of rock. With a stone held in his other hand he began to tap it gently and carefully. He went on talking as he worked.
'Do you know what's happening to your friend and his lot down in the prison caves?'
'They're holding out.'
'They were holding out, but it won't be long now before the pygmies get them. They're being smoked out. How long will they be able to stay in a cave where they can't see and can't breathe? They've got them by this time, I should guess.' He knocked off a fragment of stone, and laid-it carefully on the floor. 'It's too late now,' he persisted, 'you'll never be able to help them. Why can't you be a sensible woman? Tell me where the Sun Bird is, and we'll get away together—you'll save a lot of people.'
'No,' said Margaret.
Her heart became heavy. Was Miguel really telling the truth this time? Perhaps, but even so, there might be a chance. After all, the prisoners had beaten off two attacks. She tabulated the alternatives. If it were not true, the position remained as before. If it were, might she not just as well sacrifice the Sun Bird? No, there were the other prisoners to be freed. She had got things in the wrong-proportion. The handful of fighting men had come to have so much more importance than the hundreds of neutral prisoners, but the latter existed, many women and children among them, so Garm had said. She couldn't sacrifice them all to save herself from Miguel.
He continued to tap methodically. There was now a neat row of little stone flakes on the floor in front of him. She gazed at him, apprehensively wondering what he intended. What was it he had said? That she had nice hands? Well, that was true, but...?
'You see,' he was saying conversationally, 'there is no time limit—you will have to tell me sooner or later.'
He laid down his stone and looked at the flakes before him. There were ten of them; little splinters of rock, quite narrow, and no more than an inch and a half long. She wondered ... ?
He picked up one and approached her.
'Come on, now—where is the Sun Bird}'
'No,' she said.
'That's your last chance you damned little mule.'
He caught her bound hands in one sinewy fist. With the other he inserted the sharp point of the stone sliver beneath her finger-nail. Then with a quick thrust of his thumb, drove it in.
A streak of vivid pain tore Margaret's arm. She shrieked with the agony of it.
'Will you tell me now?'
Sobbing she shook her head. She could not speak.
'Very well.'
He reached for another slender splinter of stone.
'You've got guts.'
Miguel addressed the quivering, sobbing form on the floor with a kind of reluctant admiration.
Margaret did not hear him. She was struggling in a sea of red agony; clinging fast to one straw of determination —she must not tell—must not tell....
Miguel sat down and looked at her moodily He felt more than a little sick. Why couldn't the fool have told him at first? He didn't want to do this. He had hated her for her betrayal, but that had passed. He'd called her a mule, but, by God, a mule wouldn't have been as stubborn as all that. He had half a mind ... No, that would be a fool thing to do. When he had gone so far____Anyhow he would try once more. He picked up a stone knife he had filched from one of the dead pygmies, and went back.
Margaret looked up at him standing over her. He was talking. From blurred eyes she could see his mouth moving. She must try to hear what he was saying. The words seemed to come from far away, but she caught their meaning—he was telling her what he proposed to do next. She listened, and her body twitched almost as though it could feel the stone knife. But he talked on, going into details, horrible, sickening. She cried out:
'No, O God, don't do that.'
'Then tell me where the Sun Bird is.'
She shook her head. 'I won't.'
'All right then____'
The stone splinter began to descend. Margaret's eyes could not leave it. Why, oh why____? All she had to do was to agree. In another second it would touch, then it would tear, then, O God.... It touched____
She screamed: 'I'll tell.... I'll tell....'
She twisted aside, sobbing with anguish of spirit. The utter abasement of defeat swept her into a misery beyond any she had known. But if—No, she would have survived one ordeal only to face another—perhaps a worse. Sooner or later she would have broken.... But the weakness of prostration was bitter beyond bearing.
Miguel turned away, glad that she could not see his face. He wiped the sweat from his forehead, and flung the stone splinter into a corner. He felt sicker than ever. He could never have done it, he knew that, but the threat had worked, thank God____
He went back to the girl and loosed the cords from her wrists and ankles. From a corner he fetched the clothes he had torn from her, and laid them over her. The tatters of her silk shirt he folded into a pillow for her head. When that was done he crossed the cave and sat down, leaning his back against the wall, listening to the sound of a sobbing so wretched that it seemed interminable.
A revolution was in progress in Miguel's mind. All his anger and hate of her had waned. He could feel nothing but pity for her, and for the things he had had to do. In fact, it was hard to believe that he had done them. It was as though events had conspired, and used him as the tool to hand. The will to live, he supposed Gordon would have called it; the will which was stronger than the form it inhabited. A gust of remorse drove through him. Yet his cunning did not altogether desert him. She must not be allowed to see his regret. She might become stubborn once more; then she would have defeated him indeed. He could not repeat those brutalities....
It was a long time before the abandoned weeping slackened, but, at last, there came into it a more normal note. The first wildness of defeat passed into a calmer hopelessness. Miguel brought a bowl of water, and held it while she drank. She raised her tear-stained face, and fixed her brimming eyes on his own. The expression she saw there surprised her. Through her sobs she murmured :
'Oh, Miguel, why have you hurc me so frightfully?'
Miguel frowned that his remorse should have been visible to her first glance.
'I had to know,' he answered curtly.
'And you'd do it again?*